BEIJING: About 3 million hectares of farmland in China are suffering from drought, state media reported on Sunday (Jun 25), after record high temperatures hit a large part of the country’s north since last week.
About 200,000 people and 760,000 large livestock do not have access to sufficient water, Xinhua reported, citing the Ministry of Water Resources.
The affected areas are mainly the northwestern region of Inner Mongolia, known for its grasslands that feed sheep and cattle, as well as northern Hebei province and northeastern Liaoning, both important corn and dairy farming areas.
Chinese capital Beijing topped 40 degrees Celsius on Saturday for a record third day, as rare high temperatures for June grilled an area the size of California in northern China.
Parts of nearby Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Inner Mongolia and Tianjin either raised or kept their hot weather alert at “red”, the highest in China’s four-tier warning system.